


I Wish I Made Cures For How People Are

by QuirkyNeon (iforgetlikeanelephant)



Series: Post-War Draco [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy-centric, Gen, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Deathly Hallows, Talk of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 15:12:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3733537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iforgetlikeanelephant/pseuds/QuirkyNeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy is ruined after the Battle of Hogwarts; covered in blood and dirt he finds himself climbing the stairs of the Astronomy Tower hours after the Dark Lord falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wish I Made Cures For How People Are

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song 'I Feel So' by Box Car Racer (because that whole CD has a nice Draco mid-redemption quality). This is pt 1 in a series that I'm currently working on, and I'm feeling very good about finishing it so I figured I'd post it here.

Draco Malfoy never considered himself suicidal, but he also never planned on surviving the war. He never planned on being upright and healthy when the Dark Lord finally fell, defeated once and for all. In fact, as morbid as it may be, Draco went into the final battle with a note already written, tucked into the inside pocket of his robes and sealed with a bit of wax. He thought that he’d been thinking ahead, ready and prepared to die at a moment’s notice because if the Dark Lord won he’d jump off the highest point of the castle and if he lost well, Draco wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban, so the plan was essentially the same.

He doesn’t actually remember much from the final battle, but he keeps replaying the scene of Vincent dying in his head, consumed by flames in the Room of Hidden Things, his own voice screaming out at the loss of his friend as he’s dragged onto the back of Harry Potter’s broom, wanting to be left alone in the burning room to die. Though in the end he’s thankful that’s not how he died, because if he had died that way his note would have been written for naught, ending up in ashes along with his body. 

After the Dark Lord’s body collapsed and the crowd gathered around the battle ground burst into celebratory sobbing and screaming, Draco searches for his mother and father, wanting to spend a few solemn moments with them before he follows through with his plans. He’s been tucked into his mother’s side for a handful of minutes before he finally manages to catch sight of Harry Potter, The Savior, surrounded by Weasleys and Gryffindors on all sides and looking like he’d rather be anywhere than where he is as the Dark Lord’s body is bound and moved to a chamber off to the side of the Great Hall by members of the Hogwarts staff. 

“I can’t stay here,” Draco says just loud enough for his mother and father to hear, his voice causing the both of them to turn their heads to look at him, Lucius’ face drawn and defeated and Narcissa’s showing nothing but concern for her only son. 

Narcissa bows her head slightly and says, “Be careful, my Dragon, this castle is not safe for us anymore,” as she drops her arm from Draco’s shoulders. 

“Is anywhere safe for us anymore?” Draco asks, not expecting an answer as he stands up and makes a cursory attempt at brushing dirt from his robes. “I’ll meet you back at the Manor when I’m ready,” he lies, not expecting to leave the Hogwarts grounds alive or of his own volition. 

Even in the entrance hall the smell of death and blood is nearly overwhelming, causing Draco to cough smoke from the Fiend Fire and dust not-so-delicately into his sleeve as he makes his way further into the castle, stepping carefully around pieces of castle and bodies of the dead. He loses track of the number of bodies he steps around or over after the fifth, shutting his mind off and walking toward the Astronomy Tower off of muscle memory alone. 

He’s doing well, walking carefully with his head down and his mind pleasantly blank, before he catches sight of a uniformed Hogwarts student unrecognizable and hung from a wall, their innards spilling out toward the floor, which causes his stomach to turn and his steps to pause momentarily before he breaks into a run, needing to be as far away from the mess as possible. As he runs he flashes back to another time when he was running this same path, rushing to kill Dumbledore and save his mother from the Dark Lord’s wrath and he feels his chest start to tighten with his impending panic attack, something he had to learn to deal with while he was living with the Dark Lord and random Death Eaters in the family manor. 

By the time Draco skids to a stop in the Astronomy Tower stairwell he’s out of breath and shaking like he’s seen the house elves do around his father, his face wet with something that he can’t be sure isn’t a mix of tears and sweat as he leans against the crumbling wall. “Almost over,” he whispers to himself as he shoves a hand into his robe to check that the paper that he placed there in the morning is still there, it is and he smiles a bit sadly to himself as he heaves himself away from the wall and finishes making his way up the stairs. He’s unsure about being so high up in the castle, not sure how much damage the Astronomy tower sustained during the battle but unwilling to try to find another place to do this. Draco figures that the place where his childhood died is as good a place as any for him to finish the job. Once he reaches the top of the tower he eases the door open and steps out into the cool dawn air, blinking in shock as he takes in the very beginnings of sunrise, not having known what time it was in the dark halls of the ruined castle. 

Draco moves the folded and sealed note from his inner robe pocket to the outer pocket, fingering the sharp edges of parchment with his fingers as he stares out at the horizon, his breathing shallow and his chest tight. “I’m sorry, Professor,” he whispers as his eyes lose focus, his gaze resting on the spot that he remembers Dumbledore falling over without really seeing, as the scene plays over in his head. Draco takes a deep breath and steps up close to the tower’s turret, one hand still in his pocket and playing with his note as he rests his free hand on the cool stone, pausing for a second before he shakes his head at himself and takes the hand out of his pocket to help pull himself up onto it, his legs dangling in the early dawn sky as he takes a seat. 

He takes the note out of his pocket and holds it in his hands, turning it over in his hands to look at the wax seal and the shakily penned ‘ _To Whom I(t) May Concern_ ’. Draco hates that he’s thought this far ahead, it makes him feel crass and overly dramatic, but he knows that there’s no way that he’ll be able to go on living like he has been. The nightmares were bad before the final battle and they are bound to only get worse now that he’s seen Vincent die and had to be rescued by bloody Potter and his merry band of fools from a burning room. The thought of ending things like this, of going over the same edge that Dumbledore did in some crossed form of guilt, was sometimes the only thing that would get him through the long nights in the family manor. He spent hours penning and re-penning the note that he holds in his hand now until he perfected the words, the visual of his death so cemented in his own mind that he was almost positive, in his more delirious moments, that he could wish himself dead if he just tried hard enough. 

Draco tucks the note back into his pocket and, in a fit of misplaced rebellion, kicks his shoes off one at a time just to see how long it takes them to hit the barely visible ground below. _Ten seconds_ , Draco thinks to himself while feeling vaguely proud because that’s what he assumed in his planning of this method of ending things, a quick build-up to a quick end-just what he wants. He sniffs and then visualizes his fall, not for the first time, realizing in a moment that wearing a robe might impede his fall or slow him down-he vaguely remembers something Madam Hooch told them in their first year about aerodynamics and how wizards robes weren’t the best choice for flying because of it. This thought in mind he slowly stand up, balancing precariously on the tower turret and moving the note from his robes to the pocket in his slacks before shrugging his Slytherin robe from his shoulders without looking, not caring where they end up behind him and thus missing the door to the top of the tower opening and closing quietly, no one appearing to be there for a moment before a bedraggled head appears seemingly in mid-air. 

“Malfoy, what are you doing?” the person asks hesitantly, letting his cloak drop to the stone beneath him while his voice shakes only slightly, Draco freezing in front of him with his socked toes only inches from the empty air below. 

Draco feels dread blanket him almost as heavily as the eyes are staring at his back, his hands curling into fists as he turns around, his back to the slowly rising sun as he looks at Harry Potter, not bothering to glare at the other man. “What does it look like I’m doing, Potter?” he replies, his own voice tired and his shoulders pulled up to be somewhere around his ears. 

Harry Potter is covered in blood that he’s not even sure is his and soot that he finds on Draco’s face as well, a sign of matching pain. “Something that you’ll regret,” he answers, taking a small step closer to the blond and away from his Invisibility Cloak. 

“Can’t regret something if you’ll be dead after it’s done,” Draco laughs hysterically as he answers, crossing his arms over his abdomen and closing his eyes against the stricken look on Potter’s face. 

“I didn’t die for you to kill yourself!” Harry snaps, almost yelling at Draco and causing him to open his eyes and look at the dark haired man, his arms still across his abdomen. 

Draco shakes his head and uncrosses his arms to wave in Harry’s direction. “You didn’t die at all, you’re here and alive…unless you’re some messed up hallucination that my mind thinks will stop me from jumping. Which you won’t,” Draco says, sounding sure but still narrowing his eyes in Harry’s direction, trying to tell if he’s actually there or not. 

“I’m not a hallucination, I am Harry Potter. I did die, but I came back because I knew my friends and the rest of the world needed me to,” Harry responds, “I was the one that needed to end things with Voldemort and so I did and now I’m hiding from the crowds of people in the Great Hall but of course I stumble on you getting ready to kill yourself!”

Draco sighs and rubs at his nose, which is beginning to feel cold, “I’m not trying to kill myself, I’m just doing what everyone already wants me to do.” He coughs into his hands and stops Harry from saying anything with a wave of his hand when he’s finished, “if I’m alive when the Auror’s start rounding people up I’m going to Azkaban for the rest of my life, or an Auror is going to forget himself and just kill me on the spot. But don’t feel bad for defeating… _him_ ; I would have been doing this same thing if he had defeated you because I didn’t exactly fancy living in a world where I’m forced to kiss the hand of some snake faced, power tripping freak.”

“You’re not going to be in Azkaban for the rest of your life Mal- _Draco_ , I’ll make sure of it. And I can be there when they come to arrest you to make sure that they don’t—”

“STOP SAVING ME!” Draco shrieks, his cheeks reddening when he hears how loud his own voice is. “I don’t want your help Potter, I don’t need your help. This is me, helping myself for once. I’m going to do what I want, not what someone else wants me to do. _I’m sick of other people controlling my life_!” Draco’s face is still pink but his voice is more controlled as he shoves a hand into his pocket grabbing the note and pulling it out to wave in Harry’s face, “this is all people need to know when they find my body, and I’d appreciate if you would leave me here and maybe later, when I’m broken and dead as opposed to just broken, you can read what I have to say on the matter.”

“Draco,” Harry says, his eyes hard and his wand hand disappearing behind his back, “I can’t let you do this.” That’s all the warning Draco gets before Harry takes two giant steps toward him and hits him with a stunning curse all at once, grabbing onto Draco’s waistband and tugging him forward so that he doesn’t fall off of the tower and instead falls onto Harry. 

“POTTER, LET ME GO! LET ME JUMP!” Draco screams once he comes to, finding himself pinned under Harry. “I NEED TO DO THIS I NEED TO-YOU HAVE TO LET ME DIE!” He starts to struggle under Harry, unable to stop the tears that are sliding down his face and into his hair as he pushes at Harry’s chest, not caring how loud he is anymore as he chokes on a sob.

Harry lets Draco struggle, not even flinching when he hits Harry’s more sensitive and bruised areas. “You need to calm down, please, I can’t let you die,” Harry says, repeating this phrase over and over until Draco stops struggling, ending with him just laying under Harry and covering his face, sobbing into his hands. “You’re okay, Draco, you’re okay,” Harry says, moving from on top of Draco to sit next to him on the cold stone, allowing the sobbing man to curl onto his side as he faces away from Harry.

“Why can’t you just leave me _alone_ , Potter? You already saved the world, you don’t need to save someone that doesn’t even want saving,” Draco says eventually, his voice tear soaked and his eyes burning as he rolls onto his back and stares up at the pink and orange sky, still not wanting to look at Harry. 

“The afterlife looks like King’s Cross,” Harry says in a light voice, “at least when I died it did. And the only person that greeted me was Dumbledore, not my parents, not Sirius or Remus, just Dumbledore. And d’you want to know what he said? He said we all have a choice to live or to give up.”

“I’m not you Potter, I made my choice-very happily mind you-and that choice was to die. You _took_ that decision from me. I don’t care that you decided to live, don’t you get that? Don’t you get that I’m not you? That I don’t have people that love me like they love you? I don’t want to exist anymore! Don’t you understand that?” Draco snaps, bringing a hand up to wipe at his eyes tiredly, letting his hand cover his face once he’s done. 

Draco hears Harry shift on the stone before he speaks, “I do understand that. Do you really think that I _wanted_ to do all this? That I _wanted_ to watch friends and family die just so that I could defeat some power crazed mad man when I should have been here, finishing up my seventh year and getting ready to go out into the real world. I’ve been living in a _tent_ for the past year, Draco, because I was a wanted man and the only thing I ever did to deserve this was to be born at the end of July and then have my parents killed. I didn’t exactly make this decision either.” For some reason Harry can’t take his eyes off of Draco’s socked feet, his brain realizing that it’s not the first time that he’s seen the other man this vulnerable. “I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, his mind flashing back to his sixth year, which feels like a lifetime ago.

The blond laughs quietly to himself before taking his hand off of his face, letting his arms drop to his side. “Unless you’re apologizing from pulling me away from the edge I don’t want to hear it,” he says, sounding on the verge of anger once again. 

“I’m apologizing for cursing you in the bathroom and nearly killing you last year,” Harry admits, shifting so that he’s hugging his knees to his chest as Draco finally tilts his head to look at him for the first time since he rolled away from the other man. 

Draco sighs and feels a phantom twinge of pain in his chest, “I’m just sorry you didn’t finish the job, would have saved me a lot of nightmares.”

“...You have nightmares?” Harry asks dumbly, not having realized that maybe he wasn’t the only person affected by everything that’s happened since the last time he saw Draco on the Astronomy Tower. 

“That’s probably the dumbest thing you’ve ever asked, Potter. Of course I have nightmares, the Dark Lord was living in my home for the past year. Do you really think that’s conducive to a decent night’s sleep? Because I can assure you that it’s not,” Draco replies, rolling his eyes as Harry’s widen. 

“I suppose I didn’t think about it,” Harry admits, shrugging slightly and brushing his hair away from his face. 

“Of course not, because everything is all about you all the time, Potter,” Draco coughs, his fingers flexing against the cool floor of the tower.

“I don’t think that,” Harry says, glaring at Draco reflexively even though the other man isn’t looking at him anymore. 

Draco laughs, “maybe not, but everyone else does. Haven’t you noticed that literally everyone’s lives revolve around you, Potter?” 

“No they-”

“Yes, they do. The Dark Lord wanted to kill you, Dumbledore was fighting to keep you alive, your friends and their families were willing to literally die to keep you alive, and even my own mother lied at the risk of her life to make sure that you could do what you needed to do,” Draco snaps, finally sitting up off of the cold floor as the sun rises just over the horizon of the Forbidden Forest. “No one cares about me, no one cares what I do, and my friends certainly don’t care enough about me that they’d be willing to die for me, so why the hell won’t you let me die?” he practically whines, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees. 

Harry is silent for a moment, looking out at the sunrise, gathering his thoughts. “You saved my life,” he says, not looking away from the sky, “that’s why I’m saving yours.”

“What are you talking about?” Draco questions, looking at Harry’s profile with narrowed eyes. 

“When Ron, Hermione, and I were brought to your manor by the Snatchers, you saved me by telling them that you weren’t sure it was me,” Harry reminds Draco unnecessarily.

“What, you think I should have recognized it was you just from your eyes? We don’t know each other well enough for that,” Draco scoffs even as his cheeks pink up in embarrassment. 

Harry looks over at him and asks gently, “ _Did_ you know it was me though?”

“That’s not the point, Potter! The point _is_ that I want to die and you won’t let me! You are not my keeper, and you are most certainly not my friend so just leave me here to make my own decision,” Draco pushes on, ignoring the question and instead getting back to the root of the argument. The whole reason he’s currently sitting on the hard stone of the Astronomy Tower. 

“What does that note say?” Harry asks, changing the subject again and pointing to the piece of folded and sealed parchment that’s resting by Draco’s hip. 

Draco rolls his eyes and grabs it, shoving it into Harry’s hand, “you might as well read it considering you might be the only one that actually cares apparently.” 

Harry opens it, trying to be careful yet still managing to cut his thumb on the edge of the parchment, and reads. 

_I’m not sorry for anything that I’ve done in the course of the war. I’m not sorry that I wanted to survive. I am sorry that I had no choice but to do the things that I did in order to keep my family alive. I have nightmares of Professor Burbage screaming out for Snape and that same man killing Dumbledore in cold blood. I can still feel the blood on my robes and face from the people that I had to kill-the Muggles and Muggleborns that I saw murdered in their homes and in hiding. I try not to remember the Death Eaters forcing themselves on the innocent women, dead and alive, but it’s difficult because my mind won’t let me forget. I have ended my life in the same place that my childhood was murdered, off the edge of the Astronomy Tower and into obscurity._

Harry reads it two, three times and then finally looks up at Draco, his eyes shining with concern. “What did you see, Draco?” he asks, folding the parchment back up and placing it in the pocket of his jeans, turning so that he’s facing Draco head on. 

“Things that I wish I hadn’t,” Draco answers simply, avoiding Harry’s eyes and looking intently down at his own lap. 

Harry hesitates before he speaks again, “I-I was there with Snape. When he died.”

“Congratulations, Potter, finally got to see your least favorite professor at his most vulnerable,” Draco seethes. 

“It wasn’t-it wasn’t like that, before he died he gave me something. Something that I think you should see,” Harry says quickly, trying to stop Draco from getting angry again. 

Draco narrows his eyes at the other man, “and what exactly is it that you think I should see?” 

“These,” Harry says, pulling a stoppered vial from his pocket and holding it out to Draco, wiggling it until he grabs it quickly. 

“Memories? What do you think I want with Snape’s memories?” Draco asks, turning the vial over in his hands and watching the viscous liquid move slowly around the glass so that he doesn’t have to look at Harry. 

“Just trust me, you’ll want to look at a few of the ones that are in there. They mostly involve my mum but there’s some that involve Dumbledore, and those are the ones you’ll want to view,” Harry admits, causing Draco to laugh humorlessly. 

“Of course, even Snape’s life revolved around you,” he mumbles, still looking at the vial. “You should go,” Draco says suddenly, “I’m sure everyone is looking for you and if they find you with me they’ll assume that I’ve done something to you.” 

“I don’t want to leave you alone up here,” Harry says, his voice strong for the first time since he watched Draco balance on the turret of the tower. 

Draco rolls his eyes and gets up, brushing off the butt of his trousers and eyeing his robe before shrugging and stuffing his hands in his pockets instead of grabbing it. “Fine, I’m up and I’ll go down to some ground level area. I told my mother that I’d be back to the manor soon anyway,” Draco says, smirking slightly as Harry struggles to stand up quickly, only then noticing how filthy he and Harry both are. 

“I’ll walk with you,” Harry insists, grabbing his Invisibility Cloak and opening the tower door, waving a hand in Draco’s direction to signal him to go down the stairs first. 

“Afraid I’ll curse you in the back, Potter? Because I’m wandless so I’d love to know how you think that would happen,” Draco snaps, pushing past Harry and practically storming down the stairs, forcing him to skip stairs just to be able to keep up.

“That’s not it!” Harry denies, sounding almost breathless as they reach the first landing, “I just didn’t want you to run back up to the tower and lock the door so I couldn’t stop you.” Draco slows slightly at this, glancing over his shoulder at Harry and allowing him to catch up so that he’s only a step behind. “And what do you _mean_ you’re wandless?” Harry asks, actually sounding confused. 

Draco shakes his head and answers, “you have my wand, Potter, remember? It’s the one that you used to kill the Dark Lord? Surely you remember doing that.”

“Oh...right,” Harry says lamely, feeling dumb as he feels the weight of Draco’s wand in his pocket, right next to his own recently repaired wand. 

“Right,” Draco echos quietly, only remembering that he’s got no shoes on when he steps on a particularly sharp stone and hisses out a pained breath. 

“Are you alright?” Harry asks, having heard Draco. 

“I’m fine,” Draco mumbles between clenched teeth, “I just have to be more careful considering I stupidly kicked my shoes off earlier.”

“Probably,” Harry agrees before they both descend into silence again, the only sounds their ragged breathing and the soft squeak of Harry’s trainers against the stairs. When they reach the bottom of the stairs Draco turns right and begins to continue walking, only stopping when he feels Harry’s hand grab onto his elbow. “I want to give you your wand back,” Harry blurts out, his grip on Draco’s elbow tightening when he tries to jerk his arm out of reach. 

“Well?” Draco asks, turning to face Harry and knocking his hand off of his arm in one move, holding his hand out for his wand. 

“...but I can’t,” Harry finishes lamely, “when I was on my way over here I heard some of the Auror’s saying that they were going to take the wand into custody because they want to run some basic tests on it. I’ll return it when they’re done though?” He ends it in a question, crossing his arms over his chest just so that he has something to do with his hands. 

“Whatever, Potter,” Draco says tiredly, “you know where I live so just send it by owl after they’re done with it. If you still want to return it then.” With that Draco walks off, not bothering to look back at Harry as he feels the other man’s gaze strong on his back.


End file.
